Letter to the Editor:
As I sit here, I ponder the news of the day: a horrible shooting of Hanukkah-celebrating Jews in Australia, shooting of students at Brown University, shooting of an MIT professor in his home, a knifing of a famous director-actor and his wife in California. In less urgency perhaps, there have been follow-up stories of knifings on trains and subway stations, people being shoved off train platforms in front of trains, seemingly innocent people being sucker-punched or stabbed as they walk down the street, the killing of Christians in Nigeria, and on and on; you get the idea. Horrible stuff!!
What, in God’s name, is happening to us? While most of us seem to condemn these acts, they just keep on happening; over and over. Why don’t they stop, when so many of us want them to stop? Whoever imagined we’d one day go to a football game and have snipers protecting us, or metal detectors at building entrances would become normal, or impenetrable doors at our grandkids’ schools are absolutely required. Yet here we are.
While violence to some degree has always been a component of human culture, I doubt it’s ever been as prolific as it is today. It’s like the boiling water and the frog anecdote; if you introduce the frog slowly enough, they don’t notice till it’s too late. I think one reason this violence cancer is bad and getting worse is that as a civilization we have become too process-focused and not results-focused enough. Maybe our stone aged elders had something? Maybe there is a bigger price to pay then you’d think when we don’t stick to the “if you don’t work, you don’t eat” rule? Maybe we should stop asking “why don’t you like your work?”; or, “can we do your work for you?” It may seem heartless to have the discontented go hungry, but maybe the greater good is achieved (one less societal burden). For most of us, the idea of being homeless is terrifying, but obviously some in America seemingly prefer it. If your decision tree is a choice between being stoned all day, barely conscious of what’s going on around you and living eating from one ‘soup kitchen’ to the next or being responsible, getting a job, and supporting your own needs maybe you have a mental health issue. Extrapolated further, maybe we need to see fewer violent offenders with 40-50-60 arrests and see those same offenders institutionalized where they hurt no one again. Maybe a 10-year prison sentence should really mean ’10 years’. Maybe when thousands of Christians are slaughtered, we should mount a modern-day Crusade instead of saying “isn’t that awful” and move on to the sports page.
Dan Schnieders
Jefferson City
